Friday, March 13, 2009

Gender Disparity in Recessions

The job numbers were out today, and they weren't good, but they could have been worse. What I found more interesting is the different impact the recession is having on the sexes. (All numbers in percentages.)

From the numbers, it appears that women are having much more luck finding and keeping jobs than their male counterparts. The unemployment rate among adult women is now 5.6%, relative to 7.3% for adult males. (The 24-and-younger numbers drag up the unemployment rate.)

Is this solely a function of the fact that the distribution of genders across industries is not uniform? Probably, but I'd at least want to look at the data from past recessions to see if a pattern holds.

Blogger Mark Perry has noticed the same pattern in the US (where they have more recession data), and called it a "mancession". http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post.htmlSo, when any feminists complain that the fiscal stimulus was biased towards men, we can just reply that it clearly was not biased enough!